All right I took the chicken plunge and ordered chicks, now I am freaking out...

[weluvchickens]

I have been picking them up, in hopes they would like this in the future. Good to see though that at three weeks yours are anticipating goodies! Maybe I won't have to wait forever!

 

[ChickPrincess]

Mine were very skiddish the first couple weeks. They still are when you fist walk up to the brooder. But as soon as they see my hand coming in they loosen up and come running.

 

[bobbieschicks]

Oh I have everything ready to go: brooder, feed (organic non-medicated of course), bedding, even the coop is almost done for when they are older. I just have this impending feeling of "doom" ha ha ha. Will post once they are here.

Don't worry - once you see those fuzzy butts you will quickly fall into the feeling of excitement rather then doom.

My advice to you is to move your brooder out of your house if you haven't already done that. The first several hatches I did I let brood in a tub in my living room and the daily layer dust from the chicks was incredible. You may consider brooding them for the first week inside nearby you to keep an eye out for such things as pasty butt and dehydration. But after that I would quickly move them to a garage or even their future coop. With a heat lamp on them they can brood just about anywhere that's safe.

I divided my 5x10 coop with hardware cloth so I could have a separate chick area - it's currently my broody area - but would function the same if I needed a brooder. Now that it's summer I could just hang a heat lamp safely in there for the evenings only. Of course I'm using broodies now to hatch so I don't have those issues.

 

[anichka]

i am too in a city where there are no chickens just dogs. we bought our 5 black sexlinks yesterday. day 2 for us.